Life In Bangor, North Wales

No.7, Euston Road, Bangor was my first rented double storey terrace house in the UK. It has two bedrooms and a toilet upstairs, whilst, a living room, a store and a kitchen downstairs. My housemates were Husnan (SMS Kelantan), Saadon (SMS Melaka) and Zulkifle (SM Sultan Sulaiman, Trengganu). It was about fifteen minutes walk to Gwynedd (FYI, "dd" is pronounced by the Welshmen as "th") Technical College (my place of A-Level studies). It would take a shorter time, if I was "LUCKY" enough to be chased by my unfriendly neighbour's black dog. Boy, I hated this chapter of my life until the four of us decided to buy bicycles. At that time a brand new bike would cost around £90 to £100.

For me, studying A-Level is similar to MCE, so, I'm in familiar territories. My subject choices were Physics, Statistics and Economics. I remembered being told by one of my senior brother studying QS in Liverpool Polytechnic to take these three subjects as they were very relevant to QS studies - thank you Brother Ahmad, wherever you are, now.

One fine morning, Zulkifle decided to fry the leftover rice from last night's dinner as our breakfast. After enjoying the hearty breakfast, off we went to the college. Our first subject of the day was Physics. Mr. Jones, the Physics lecturer, decided to ask a lot of questions that morning, instead of his usual lecturing. The questions that was answered wrongly by my classmates was redirected to Sauri (that was the name Mr. Jones used to call me). To my surprise I could answer all the questions correctly. Out of curiousity, Mr. Jones asked "Sauri! What did you have for your breakfast this morning?". Without hesitation, I replied "Fried rice, sir!". I could see the roundness of Mr. Jones eyeballs slightly jutting out of his eye sockets, upon hearing my answer. Then he said "I must try that." and everybody in the class laughed.

Then, there was another time, as I passed by the Physics lab, I saw Mr. Jones chit-chatting with Mr. Mitchells, our Statistics lecturer. Upon seeing me, Mr. Jones called me as if he has something to ask me. He was holding application forms from the coming batch of Malaysian students. "Could you clarify for me the addresses of these Malaysian students?" Mr. Jones asked. He continued without waiting for me to answer his query. "I remembered your address as Batu 5, Jalan Kuala Perlis. Is your house a bungalow?" I replied, "Yes, sir." Mr. Jones then said, "So, this student's house must be a semi-detached house, since his address is Batu 7½, Jalan...". I tried to hold my laughter. Just before I could reply, Mr. Jones again asked, "What kind of house does this student live in? ... Batu 2¾, Jalan..." Mr. Jones, Mr. Jones. You really made my day, that day.

...to be continued

by mzauri@pc.jaring.my